


Copycat

by ravenclawkohai



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M, Puppet Cloud Strife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 21:52:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14902700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenclawkohai/pseuds/ravenclawkohai
Summary: "I'm starting to talk like you do."Puppet!Cloud inspired by Copycat by Circus P: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ01Jk067sA





	Copycat

               It started the way these things tended to: slowly. It came in bits and pieces, and it didn’t seem to matter if he was awake or asleep or something in the middle.

               Time and again he met a strange man.

               Time and again he forgot him.

               It happened in dreams. In conversations in his head. In chance encounters when he was separated from his friends.

               Times like when he was sent off to hunt for dinner when they were out of rations, stranded in the damp forests of Mideel.

               He hadn’t expected to run into anyone, out here in the middle of nowhere, and when he looked to his right and saw the man leaning with his shoulder and hip against a tree, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

               When he gasped and startled, the man gave a low laugh, a smile curling on his lips that was obviously amused, but had an edge of something Cloud couldn’t quite put his finger on.

               “You scared me,” Cloud admitted, shifting out of the crouch he’d been in, looking for tracks to find food. “I didn’t think anyone else would be out here.”

               Something about the man was achingly familiar. As if he’d seen him a thousand times before. This was a face he knew, but for the life of him couldn’t place. And that was odd, because he was nothing if not striking. His features were beautiful in a way that would make statues jealous, his eyes glowing and cut strange as if almost nonhuman, his hair tumbling like a shower of moonlight: he was ethereal. He wasn’t the kind of person one just _forgot_.

               So Cloud shrugged it off. He would remember this man, if he’d met him before. Maybe he was famous somewhere; maybe he’d seen a photo amid all those plastered images in the Gold Saucer. It wasn’t really important.

               The stranger tilted his head, hair spilling over his shoulder, and he tapped his finger twice against his folded arms. He pushed off from the tree and approached slowly, and Cloud almost took a step back.

               He had a gravitas around him that sat strange in the air. He moved silently through the underbrush, feet finding the perfect path to walk to make the least noise without him even looking. His steps were slow, and measured, and careful in a way that had nothing to do with where his feet fell. The smile had yet to fall from his face.

               “Don’t you tire of saying that?”

               Cloud shivered. His voice was like music, and it seemed to echo in Cloud’s brain like a melody bouncing around a concert hall. Everything about him relaxed and fell slack.

               And then he shook his head slightly, refocused his eyes, and forced himself back to present.

               “Excuse me?”

               “Every time, Cloud. Every time, it’s surprise from you. And, while I understand why, I’m tiring of it.”

               Alarm bells rung alongside the man’s voice in his head. That sense of complete ease came over him again, and this time, it was a struggle to fight off.

               “How do you know my name? What are you talking about?”

               “Questions, questions. They’re tiresome. But, you have been remembering quicker lately. I wonder how long it will take you this time?”

               His eyelids felt like they were made of lead, and his head felt like concrete. His eyelids fluttered as he tried to keep them open, his head nodded forward despite the way he fought to keep it upright. The effect was quick, but it was just as quickly moving from alarming to terrifying. Though he stumbled, Cloud took a few steps backwards. The man tutted at him.

               “Cloud,” the man crooned, and it left goosebumps on his skin. “Did you not hear me? I’m tiring of this song and dance. _Remember_.”

               The command felt like ice down his back. He gasped for the second time that afternoon and froze in place. Eventually, he came out of the shock and into a sense of pure peace. Every line of tension slipped away.

               “Sephiroth,” Cloud said with a sigh and a smile.

               “Cloud,” Sephiroth said, his smile turning fond.

               He reached out his gloved hand and cupped Cloud’s cheek, and the blond melted in his hands. He leaned his head and tilted his face into the touch, eyes slipping shut in pure, vulnerable trust.

               “Look up at me,” Sephiroth whispered, and Cloud obeyed in a heartbeat. Sephiroth raised his other hand, thumb stroking along the side of one of Cloud’s wide eyes.

               “My little mirror,” Sephiroth hummed, looking down into eyes that matched his own.

 

               Cloud didn’t like the strange change in the way his friends were treating him. It had been coming on slowly, but it wasn’t until he couldn’t ignore it that he was even sure it was happening.

               They kept casting him looks that weren’t quite wary or suspicious, but at least seemed to be distrusting. They whispered and then fell quiet when he entered a room. Sometimes they seemed hesitant to talk to him, or concerned when they didn’t need to be. Something was going on.

               Something was definitely going on, but the pounding in his head lately had been getting worse and worse, and it was hard to concentrate on anything else.

               He told himself they were concerned over his headaches, old warning sign that they were, and let it slide.

               At least, he did until Tifa pulled him aside.

               “Cloud, come here for a second.”

               He stopped rubbing his temple and fell in line when she slipped her arm through his to pull him off to the side.

               “What is it, Tifa?”

               “I’ve got a weird question for you.”

               Cloud looked at her strangely.

               “Weird enough that you couldn’t say it in front of everyone else?”

               Tifa glanced over her shoulder at the group.

               “I want to make sure you answer honestly.”

               He paused. It was true that there were things he wouldn’t say in front of the rest of the group, that he would only allow Tifa to hear, but it wasn’t comforting to know that they were heading into that sort of territory.

               “Of course, Tifa.”

               “Have you been working on your accent?”

               Cloud blinked. He blinked again. A third time, and then a laugh.

               “You pulled me to the side to talk about my _accent_?”

               Tifa was watching him closely. She didn’t share in the mirth, and she didn’t seem offended by it either.

               “I did,” she said, with a seriousness that was sobering. The smile slipped from Cloud’s face, and his brow pinched.

               “No, Tifa; you know I don’t care if I sound as backwater as I am. Why are you asking?”

               “Because you don’t anymore, Cloud.”

               “… Excuse me?”

               “You sound—I don’t know, posh? Like you were born and raised in Midgar with a thousand tutors teaching you how to talk right.”

               A little bubble of laughter slipped from him, full of disbelief and concern.

               “That’s not funny.”

               “It isn’t supposed to be, Cloud. You don’t sound like yourself anymore, and I’m worried—”

               _“You’re starting to talk like I do_.”

               “—… Cloud?”

               He shook his head a little and blinked a few times, a little too quickly, but focused back in on her. The strangely familiar voice in his head was forgotten immediately. He reached up to rub the back of his neck.

               “I don’t know what to tell you, Tifa. This is news to me.”

               “You’d tell me if something was going on, right? If this had to do with Sephiroth?”

               The name echoed in his head. That familiar voice returned. It said a thousand different things at the exact same time, to the point that none of it was distinguishable beyond it being the same speaker. He shuddered and his head ticked just slightly to the side, and aborted attempt to shake his head clear.

               “You know I would.”

               She hesitated, as if she didn’t know that, but sighed. She punched his arm lightly.

               “Just let me know if something changes, yeah?”

               “Yeah.”

 

               Nibelheim seemed to shift oddly around them in the way only possible in dreams. Cloud sat across his mother’s table from Sephiroth in his empty hometown, and wasn’t bothered at all by the absence of the townsfolk.

               Sephiroth reached across the table and slid one fingertip down Cloud’s jaw before using it to lift his chin. He leaned forward and spoke a breath away from Cloud’s lips, where the blond could breathe his words.

               “I’ll change you from the inside out. Then no one will doubt who you belong to—not even you.”

               “Please,” Cloud begged, but he wasn’t sure if it was for the fulfillment of that promise or for the kiss that followed.

 

               “Cloud, you got a minute?”

               “One moment.”

               Cloud finished where he was helping Cid reattach a panel in the Highwind, and turned to Tifa. He didn’t catch the brief look Tifa and Cid shared when he was turning.

               “What is it?”

               “Can I talk to you?”

               Cloud sighed, remembering the last time Tifa had pulled him aside like this. That conversation came with an unfortunate realization that he still wasn’t sure how to handle. He wasn’t looking forward to this.

               He brushed his hands off and looked to Cid.

               “Go on, I’ve got it from here.”

               He nodded and followed Tifa into the empty meeting room.

               “What is it, am I speaking stranger?”

               “Yeah. Yeah you are.”

               Cloud blinked. He was being sarcastic when he said it.

               “What do you mean?”

               Tifa rubbed her forehead and cursed.

               “So you’re not doing it on purpose?”

               “Doing _what_?”

               “Talking all… stiff.”

               “What is that even supposed to mean?”

               “Come on, Cloud,” she said, all frustrated but a tinge of panic. “ _Stiff_. Proper. For the gods’ sakes, when I asked to talk to you, you said, ‘one moment.’”

               “And?”

               “And you would usually say something like, ‘yeah, hold on a sec.’ You aren’t talking like you anymore. It’s like you’re reading from a script someone else is writing.”

               “That makes no sense, and I know you know that.”

               “Of course I know that!” This time, there was definitely panic there. “I wouldn’t even be mentioning it if I wasn’t damn sure it was happening. I’m not _imagining_ things, Cloud.”

               “I didn’t say that you were.”

               “You were implying it.”

               “If I was, it’s because that’s absurd.”

               “C’mon, Cloud! ‘If I was, it’s because that’s absurd?’ That should have been, I don’t know, like, ‘because that’s stupid, Tifa.’ I don’t know how else to say it but stiff!”

               Cloud rubbed his brow, trying to smooth out the irritation.

               “What would you like me to do about this?”

               “I want to know why!”

               “There isn’t a why, because I’m not doing anything!”

               The two froze and glanced toward the door, only now realizing the way their voices had been raising.

               This time, Cloud said in a hush, “I promise you that I’m not. You know that I don’t exactly think before I speak. I just say what comes to mind.”

               “I know that, and that’s the problem, Cloud. If things that aren’t you are coming to your mind, we have reason to be worried.”

               Cloud frowned. He didn’t like the implication.

               Tifa looked like she didn’t like making the implication any more than he liked hearing it.

               “There’s nothing going on in my head that you need to worry about.”

               If there was a chuckle that rang in his ears, it didn’t quite matter, because he forgot it immediately.

               “How can you be sure?”

               He paused. Then he shrugged.

               “I suppose I can’t. But I _am_ aware of it, now. If I’m aware, Sephiroth won’t be able to do what he did before.”

               Tifa frowned a little. She settled her weight in her hip and folded her arms over her chest.

               “I hope you’re right about that.”

 

               Cloud felt his breath escape him as his back hit the alley wall, his hands pinned above his head. Before he could catch his breath, a second hand came up to cup his chin and turn his face to the side, exposing the long line of his neck. He got a few quick pulls of breath in when he first felt Sephiroth’s mouth on his throat, but it all left him in a rush and a moan when he bit down. His head fell back against the wall and, no longer being needed to hold his head in place, Sephiroth’s left hand began to wander.

               “They ask you so many questions, but you never remember the answers. But you remember everything when I’m here.”

               “Everything,” Cloud agreed in a whisper.

               “Everything important. Whose side are you on?”

               “Yours.”

               That hand reached down to cup his ass.

               “Who do you belong to?”

               “You.”

               A knee slid between his thighs.

               “Who do you love?”

               “ _You_.”

               It pressed up, and he moaned long and loud before a hand clamped over his mouth to muffle it, and everything dissolved into heat.

 

               He came out of his room in the morning, groggy and yawning still, to find everyone sitting around the meeting room table eating cold breakfasts they all wished were replaced with something hot. The sight always reminded him of his mother’s home, and he loved it being the first thing he saw in the morning, even if he wouldn’t admit to that.

               It was, however, spoiled when Cid looked up at him with a smile to greet him, just for that smile to fall and for him to loudly proclaimed, “ _Shit_.”

               The room stopped. Everyone looked up at Cid in alarm and then followed his gaze to Cloud. It took each member of AVALANCHE a different amount of time, but they all had their reactions. There was cursing, there was groaning, there were faces in hands, there were faces turned away. Cloud looked around at them in confusion and matching alarm.

               “I _told_ you!” Cid snapped at Tifa, popping out of his chair so quickly that it fell backwards. “I _told_ you this was what was happening!”

               “You didn’t know any more than the rest of us. We all agreed to wait,” she said, and she was strangely morose. She had her forehead in her palm and her shoulders slumped. She had been one of the loudest to curse, but the fight seemed to have fallen from her, replaced with defeat.

               “We did, and it seems we can’t wait any longer. What do we do?” Vincent said quietly from where he was still leaning against the wall, not having moved since Cloud entered.

               “What are we talking about?” Cloud asked with equal hush, not quite wanting to know.

               “We never settled on what to do,” Nanaki reminded them.

               “Because there are no good options,” Tifa said.

               “We can’t do nothing,” Vincent said.

               “What are we talking about?” Cloud repeated, loudly this time, loud enough that he couldn’t be ignored. A hush fell over the room.

               Everyone looked to Tifa.

               When she saw the looks, she swore under her breath, grumbling something that sounded like, “A bunch of babies,” as she dug around in her bag.

               Eventually, after a silence that seemed painfully long, she found what she was looking for. It was a little compact mirror that she flipped open as she stood and walked to Cloud. Without a word, she passed it to him.

               He took it and glanced at her once, only looking into it once she nodded at him.

               Looking back at him were two acidic green, cat-slit eyes with that familiar, familiar mako glow.

 _“It’s time_.”

               Cloud dropped the mirror.

               It clattered on the ground.

               Everyone watched him very closely.

               And slowly, slowly, he turned around, and he left.

               As it hadn’t been the reaction anyone was expecting, it was a long moment before Tifa reached out and grabbed him by the elbow. He was almost out the door.

               “Tifa, let me go.”

               “Cloud—”

               “ _It’s time, Cloud. Come home._ ”

               “I said _let go_.”

               “We have to talk about this, Cloud!”

               In an unfair use of SOLDIER strength, he ripped his arm from her grip.

               “There’s nothing to discuss,” he hissed and then turned and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

               It stayed closed for approximately three seconds before banging open again, the entirety of AVALANCHE following hot on his heels.

               “ _Come home_.”

               “Cloud! Where are you going?”

               “Home.”

               “ _Home?_ Nibelheim’s on a completely different continent.”

               “ _Come home_.”

               “I said home, not Nibelheim.”

               “Where’s home, then?”

               “What does it matter to you?”

               “It matters a lot!”

               “Consider it mattering less.”

               “Stop being cryptic!”

               “ _Come home, Cloud. I’m waiting._ ”

               “You aren’t my first priority right now.”

               “Well then what is? Give me _something_ , Cloud.”

               “I’ll give you a guess.”

               “… I don’t think that sounds how you meant it to sound.”

               “Doesn’t it?”

               He finally reached the exit to the Highwind and looked out on the field of grass they had settled it into the night before so they could rest. Waiting in the middle of it was Sephiroth.

               He only got as far as he did by virtue of the others’ surprise. There was another round of cursing and exclamations and scrambling for weapons, though most of them had been left behind in the Highwind as the group followed Cloud through the plane, listening in on his conversation with Tifa in hopes of some answers.

               Sephiroth ignored the others entirely. His hand wasn’t even on his sword; it was extended in front of him. A soft smile was on his face. A soft smile that was echoed on Cloud’s.

               He managed to get halfway to Sephiroth before Tifa’s hand clamped onto his elbow again. For a second time, he ripped it from her, but she grabbed on again.

               “Cloud, stop!”

               “What, Tifa!” he snapped, whirling on her. “What do you intend to do about this? My mind’s made up. I know where I belong, and it isn’t by your side. The only shame is how long it took me to realize it. Now _let me leave_.”

               “Fuck no!” she spat. “Cloud, you aren’t talking sense, and if you just get away from him and give me _five minutes_ —”

               “Enough! I have a home, and I’m going to return to it, regardless of what you say or do. You can let it happen, or I can make you stand aside. Which will it be, Tifa?”

               She reeled back a fist to attempt to knock him out, but in another show of mako enhancement, he popped his own fist into her temple before she could even swing. She crumpled to the ground.

               A third round of exclamations.

               Cloud turned and left.

               He got another three steps in before he heard a gunshot and felt the bullet dig into his shoulder.

               “Godsdammit, Vincent,” he muttered, turning to face him.

_“Don’t bother. Come to me. Hurry.”_

               Instead of turning all the way to Vincent, he continued forward.

               When another gunshot filled the air, he heard it ricochet off the Wall spell Sephiroth cast on him. A relieved smile touched his face, and it only multiplied as he finally got close enough to take Sephiroth’s hand. He pulled in a small gasp as a shiver ran down his spine with the contact. Sephiroth laced their fingers together and reached out with his free hand to check Cloud’s shoulder.

               “It’s nothing—it’ll heal soon. We should go,” he whispered, somehow afraid to raise his voice. It would spoil the moment.

               “Of course,” Sephiroth said. He looked back to Cloud with a slow smile and cupped his face, both heedless to the smear of blood it left on his cheek.

               They kissed, as slow and tender as the brief moment would allow for, and when they pulled away, Sephiroth whispered to him.

               “Welcome home.”


End file.
